George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School

Repetition of Junk Science & Epithets Does Not Make Them True

Here’s a brief excerpt of a post by Adam Mossoff that was published on IPWatchdog.

In their recent submission to the Washington Post’s series on so-called “patent reform” and “patent trolls,” James Bessen and Michael Meurer repeat the same junk science claims we’ve all heard many times before. Read more

Busting Smartphone Patent Licensing Myths

closeup of a circuit boardCPIP has released a new policy brief, Busting Smartphone Patent Licensing Myths, by Keith Mallinson, Founder of WiseHarbor. Mr. Mallinson is an expert with 25 years of experience in the wired and wireless telecommunications, media, and entertainment markets.

Mr. Mallinson discusses several common myths concerning smartphone patent licensing and argues that antitrust interventions and SSO policy changes based on these myths may have the unintended consequence of pushing patent owners away from open and collaborative patent licensing. Read more

Google’s Patent Starter Program: What it Really Means for Startups

The following guest post comes from Brad Sheafe, Chief Intellectual Property Officer at Dominion Harbor Group, LLC.

By Brad Sheafe

Recalling its rags-to-riches story of two guys with nothing but a great idea, a garage, and a hope of making the world a better place, Google recently announced its new Patent Starter Program. Read more

It’s Time to Say “No” to Junk Science in the Patent Policy Debates

Last March, forty economists and law professors submitted a letter to Congress expressing “deep concerns with the many flawed, unreliable, or incomplete studies about the American patent system that have been provided to members of Congress.”  These concerns were confirmed again last week when Unified Patents released a report on patent litigation with the same kind of “highly exaggerated claims regarding patent trolls” that the professors were concerned about. Read more

How Rhetorical Epithets Have Led the FTC Astray in its Study of Patent Licensing Firms

We’ve all heard the narrative about patent licensing firms, often referred to pejoratively as “patent trolls.” These patent owners, who choose to license their innovations rather than build them, are the supposed poster-children of a “broken” patent system. It’s as if commercializing one’s property, just like a landlord leases his land for another to use, is suddenly a bad thing. Read more

The Commercial Value of Software Patents in the High-Tech Industry

In CPIP’s newest policy brief, Professor Saurabh Vishnubhakat examines the important role patents play in commercializing software innovation and supporting technology markets. He explains how a proper understanding of this commercial role requires a broader view of patents in software innovation than the all-too-common focus on a small handful of litigated patents and legal questions of patentability and patent quality. Read more

Curbing the Abuses of China’s Anti-Monopoly Law: An Indictment and Reform Agenda

The following is taken from a CPIP policy brief by Professor Richard A. Epstein.  A PDF of the full policy brief is available here.

Curbing the Abuses of China’s Anti-Monopoly Law:
An Indictment and Reform Agenda

Executive Summary

There are increasing complaints in both the European Union and the United States about a systematic bias in China’s enforcement of its Anti-Monopoly Law (AML).  Read more

Cohen et al. “Patent Trolls” Study Uses Incomplete Data, Performs Flawed Empirical Tests, and Makes Unsupportable Findings

PDF summary available here

I.   Introduction

A recent draft study about patent licensing companies entitled “Patent Trolls: Evidence from Targeted Firms is making the rounds on Capitol Hill and receiving press coverage. This attention is unfortunate, because the study is deeply flawed and its conclusions cannot and should not be relied upon. Read more

Intellectual Property Unites Creators and Innovators

This is the first in a series of posts summarizing CPIP’s 2014 Fall Conference, “Common Ground: How Intellectual Property Unites Creators and Innovators.” The Conference was held at George Mason University School of Law on October 9-10, 2014. Videos of the conference panels and remarks, as well as panel summaries, will be available soon. Read more

Patent Policy Debates Characterized by "Intolerably High Ratio of Theory to Evidence"

In an interview with Law360 last week, FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright spoke about the FTC’s upcoming study on PAEs and the state of today’s patent policy debates. The interview is well-worth reading in it’s entirety, and we’ve also highlighted a couple key quotes below. Read more